Abby's team played Socorro high school and won easily. I liked my pictures at this game because it was of Abby in the front row. She doesn't get set very often even though she likes to hit and is good at it, so I never have the camera ready to get pictures of her hitting. I took this first one when they ran a play where she and the middle hitter both head to the net and the setter and the setter sets one or the other. She ended up setting the middle hitter, but it was still a cool looking play. The second picture was Abby hitting the ball from the middle.
Tessa had another marching competition at the SAC the following weekend. I went as a chaperone so I followed the percussion section around and helped with equipment when they needed it. I watched them warm up and some of the other moms and I got them all to stop for a picture once they had their uniforms on. I also had to take a picture of them helping each as they put on their uniform jackets. The uniforms zip up the back, so they always line up like this to get their uniforms zipped. I thought it was a cool picture of teamwork and friendship.
Taryn has many playdates with her good friend Malerie. One day they played at a park and found baby frogs. They thought they were so cute and Malerie's mom had to get a picture of the girls playing "The Frog Prince" pretending that they were going to kiss the frogs to turn them into princes. Valerie, Malerie's mom, thought it was too cute, so she took a picture and sent it to me. I also took a picture of Aubrey and Taryn with their carved pumpkins. We had them outside the front door until they rotted away. Aubrey's headless monster was really good and Taryn's smirking face would change expressions every couple of days while it slowly shriveled.
Abby's in a CDL class this year which stands for child development lab. She and her classmates actually run a preschool during the morning every day. She was in charge of a lesson/activity and she found this activity online using water bottles and the alphabet. The letters of the alphabet are written on the lid of each bottle and so the kids match up the lid to the letter on the board and then have to screw on the lid to practice their fine motor skills. Abby was very proud of herself for finding it and putting it together on her own. And she said the kids loved playing it. She even drew some spiders with the letters on the board and used Halloween colored paper since she did her activity in October.
Tessa's percussion section had a gig to perform at Chic-fil-A during a band fundraiser. They showed up with the director and played cadences and songs with the band's leadership team. They started having their own fun by switching up drums and their director, Mr. Simon, even played the biggest bass drum for one of their cadences. The kids thought that was pretty cool since Mr. Simon's main instrument is not percussion. Tyler and the girls came for dinner and while he was there, we ended up buying all the band kids nuggets and drinks because Chic-fil-a didn't end up feeding them like Mr. Simon thought they were going to. Mr. Simon was very appreciative that we purchased their second round of food because Mr. Simon had already bought them a lot of food with his own money. The students were also very appreciative and I think it made Tessa the star of the night as all the kids told Tessa thank you.
Abby's biggest rival game is always against Coronado. They played at Coronado this time and even with their full team and no injuries, they ended up losing in two sets. Abby was pretty upset because she really wanted to beat Coronado, but their team was just superior. Abby played well and got to set and hit, but the other team's defense was so good and their hitters were strong. There were a lot of fans because a lot of the student body always shows up for this rival game and since varsity plays right after Abby's game, there were a lot of fans in the stand watching Abby's game.
She was sad that they lost their game, but she stayed for the varsity game and sat in the student section with her friends to cheer on the varsity team. I was able to get a smile from Abby for this picture of her and her teammates. Here she is with Lauren, Elina, Selma, and Nat. I thought it was a cute picture and they stayed for the entire game to watch Franklin varsity's team beat Coronado.
Tessa's District cross country meet was held on Wednesday. I thought I'd be able to run across town between my work shifts to watch her run, but for whatever reason this district meet was the first meet all season that wasn't on time. I ended up having to call into work and tell them I wasn't going to make it back for my afternoon shift. Tessa's race was for the 6A non-varsity girls and they had to wait to race until after the 5A boys and girls races, which is why they got behind schedule. I took a couple of pictures as the girls prepared to take off. They always pray together before any race and Tessa and her friend, Brooke who is also a member of the church, are the ones who always say the prayer. Tessa loves that she gets to do that. She says it's different because they have their arms around each other instead of folded, but the wording of the prayer is familiar since it's either her or Brooke who do the praying. I love that she loves it.
This district meet was held at the golf course that they had raced at multiple times already. The first time Tessa did not race very well, but her next time was better, so she was feeling good about this race. She kept up with her teammates and did everything she had been training to do. She actually raced with all non-varsity girls but they separate the results by freshmen, and other grades, so even though she raced with all the girls, she was technically only competing with the freshmen.
I watched as Tessa crossed the finish line and it looked like she had done really well. There were only 3 or 4 other Franklin girls ahead of her and only one of those girls was a freshman. I didn't know about the other girls from other schools who finished before her, but she was happy with how she had done. We waited for the results and were super ecstatic when we found out that Tessa had placed second of all the freshmen! Her friend Olivia from her team, who always places really high, was the only freshman who finished in front of Tessa. We were so excited. The top four freshman girls were from Tessa's school. I got this picture of the top 7 freshman girls. We figured out after seeing the results of the non-freshman that Tessa had placed 11th overall, so not too bad. I even heard her coach exclaiming how surprised he was that Tessa had come out with the silver medal. Tessa reached her goal of coming back from her bad race mid-season to prove to her coach that she could compete and do well. We are so proud of her!
After the 6A boys raced and heard their results, the team had to rush back to school across town because the buses were late getting back. Their coach was able to quickly get the team together for a full Franklin team picture. I guess it wasn't a full team picture since it didn't include varsity. They had raced the weekend before, but this was the full Franklin Open team. Tessa loves all the new friends she made this season in cross country.
I had Tessa gather her closest cross country friends so I could have a close up picture of them, so here's: Isa, Hannah, Tessa, Chase, Aiden (who they all call Bob), Mireyda, and Christian. We ended up taking Tessa to Bahama Bucks that night to celebrate her silver medal. I was so happy to call Tyler and Grandma and Grandpa Black to tell them about Tessa's victory. She was happy to celebrate with the biggest Bahama Bucks snow cone she could get. I used this picture to brag about her on Facebook. I loved it even more because of Abby's photo bomb in the back.
Whenever Franklin High School plays their rival, Coronado High School, in football, they call it the Westside Bowl and they play at the UTEP stadium. I went as a band chaperone, so we were there early for the band to practice on the field. We were there as the teams and fans started showing up and I sat with the other band parents in front of the band right near the field. The band sat near the end zone where the Franklin team runs out of their tunnel, so I up close to see the cheer squad. When I realized that I knew three of the four boys who were painted and ready to race ahead of the team with their flags, I had to get a picture for their moms. Logan Kasallis was one of them and so was Mont Packer and Ryan Marshall. They all go to church with us and are good friends with Abby and Tessa. When they posed for my picture, they also realized that they were close to Tessa who was in the stands. They tried to embarrass her by calling out to her while she was with her percussion section, but she just waved and smiled. The district posted some pictures from the game and I saved this second one because even though they were taking a picture of the twirler who performs with the marching band, it's Tessa who's in the picture behind her. I love that she's smiling too.
This was probably the biggest crowd the band had performed for during a football game halftime show. The Coronado fans were the ones in the back of this first picture, but they had no where near as many fans as the Franklin side had, but I didn't get a picture of our side of the stadium. The band looked really good. I was able to help with equipment on the field during their halftime show, so I was down on the field while they warmed up before the show.
During the 3rd quarter of the game, the percussion section still did their usual cadences with the cheerleaders in front of the student section. Since it was the biggest student section they've ever had, it was fun for Tessa to be down on the field with the cheerleaders and getting a lot of cheers and applause from the fans. I even got a text from my friend Heather saying how much she loved seeing Tessa down there on the field and exclaiming how cute she looked.
This was another picture that was taken from the district photos, but I loved it because it was a picture of the student section and you can see Abby right in the middle of the picture. She and her friends crammed in with the students all wearing black for the game and having fun cheering on our team. Franklin ended up winning 48-0. Coronado's football team is never very good, but our fans didn't care as long as we won. I stayed with the band for the entire game, but Tyler was there too with the youth from church so they got to see Tessa perform as well. It was a fun day and exciting game played at an awesome stadium.
Abby's last home volleyball game was against Americas. It was also their senior night, so a lot of fans were there. Abby's team won in two sets and she played amazing like usual.
The team's photographer took this picture of their JV team after their last home game. I thought it was a cute picture of her entire team. Abby had a large fan section again as a lot of her friends turned out to watch her play. She had to stay for the varsity game, but before that game started, she ran up into the stands to hug and thank all of her friends for coming to support her. I made them smile at me so I could have a picture of them all. A lot of the kids are from her church friend group, but the group of boys in the back at the top of the picture are her good friends from school and they attended a lot of her games to cheer her on as well. I love these kids. They are really good friends and it's making Abby's high school experience a great one.
As Halloween approached, we went shopping at a Halloween store to look for accessories to costumes. In the Halloween Spirit store, they had this huge display right in the middle of their store full of scary scenes and music. Tessa and Taryn went shopping with me and weren't too scared to take a walk through the haunted walkway.
A stake dance was scheduled in October. After the awesome youth conference dance in August, most of the youth were looking forward to this dance until it got close. The week of, a lot of the older kids in Abby's friend group were thinking they wanted to ditch the dance and do their own thing. Since a lot of the kids in that group have parents whose callings are in charge of the dance, we all told them they had to go to the dance. Abby came early with me but went out and sat in the car with her friend Logan so they weren't the only "cool" people at the dance too early. I kept checking on when she was going to come in, which is what prompted her to take this picture so I knew she was still there in the parking and planning on coming in soon.
Once the older kids got to the dance, it turned out really fun and they all had a good time. Tessa's group of 14 and 15 year olds really took the stage (literally) and led the kids in the group dances to keep the hype and excitement up for the majority of the dance. Tessa ended up even bringing one of our neighbors, Claire, to the dance with her. She was nervous that she would have a hard time keeping Claire happy and enjoying herself with her church friends, but luckily a lot of the church kids knew Claire from school too, so they were all really good about helping her feel welcome and included. So Tessa said it was great and she had an amazing time. Abby was even excited because some of her non-member friends showed up to the dance including some of her friends who are on the football team at school. She was so happy to have such a huge selection of guys to dance with and they all had a great time. They did end up leaving a little early to finish out the night on their own terms, but they stayed for the majority of the dance, so we leaders were happy about it. I saw Abby and Tessa dancing with a lot of guys all night long, so I was happy to see them having so much fun.
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